Keys to Putting Behavioral Health Integration into Practice

Prior to his positions with Penn Medicine, Press was a member of the senior leadership team at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at CMS, where he helped develop and implement several new payment and care delivery models including ACOs, bundled payments, integrated mental health, and medical homes. “When I was at CMS, we were looking for ways that we could help support integrated mental health, and I got to know the collaborative care model. It is an evidence-based model of integrating mental health into primary care that's been around for a few decades,” Press explained. “Then when I when I came to Penn Medicine, with the charge of leading primary care transformation and population health management, I felt that we would never be successful in the world of population health management and value-based payment without a really effective, integrated mental health program. So our first priority was to launch an integrated mental health program that is based almost entirely on the collaborative care model. For many patients with mild to moderate depression, anxiety, and/or substance use disorder, they can effectively be treated and all of their mental health needs met in the primary care setting through this evidence-based model, Press said. The VA does have mental health integration staff within its primary care medical home model, the patient-activated care team. “We made a decision early on that the expertise and the need for supervision for the collaborative care model would really have us focus on nurses or social workers or even clinical pharmacists as care managers within the integrated mental health team,” Post said.